Full Fixture Information

Result Descriptiom

Friendly

Man of the Match

Wayne Harfield

Champagne Moment

Jimmy's run out

Teddy Bear Moment

Chris Moor (who else?) wicket-keeping debacle

Full Match Report

Petersfield won Toss and put EMCC in.
EMCC 221/9 ? Petersfield 162 all out.

So here we are, 6 months, a stack of rain, a new roof, and a new season of lambs since we last played cricket. February, March and April haven?t been kind to the groundsman but here we were at 12pm up at the cricket pitch welcoming our neighbours from the big town to the east to the first game of the season.

The pitch looked green. It was also (mainly) only distinguishable from the rest of the square by virtue of the white lines and the wooden sticks at either end (to be fair, the square is only really distinguishable from the whole ground at the moment by being in the middle of it). There?d been a bit of back and forth through the week as to how likely we were to have a game, but with great effort from Bunny and from some key volunteers we were game on.

Petersfield won the toss and with a squad of young, fit, strong whippersnappers and it being April put us into bat. Really?

Aussie Tim and Olly opened up. The bowlers ran in a long way, the pitch had some bounce but the ball did tend to slow down once it had hit the pitch. Olly desperate to get off the pair he?d wintered on called Tim through for a very hasty single in the first over to get off the mark and in another world, Tim might have been run out without facing a ball ? but luckily it was not to be.

Tim, as is the fate of many an opener, got a good ball early on and was bowled for two. This just bought the skipper to the crease batting at three after his older brother had had a diversion to A&E (false alarm luckily) and so Will was at three. He looked the part. A couple of lovely drives through extra cover bought some boundaries and Olly at the other end was getting his eye in with 5 x 4 and 2 x 6 as they added 60 for the second wicket before Olly skied to mid-on and was out for 44.

Mark Davis at four looked good and made an attractive 20, including a lovely lofted drive for six before playing a little early and getting a leading edge back to the bowler. This bought Jimmy to the crease, the scorecard doesn?t recall how many him and Jimmy put on as not everyone seems to bother with recording the fall of wicket ? but it was a few. Will going past 50 before finally being out for 61.

This bought AdL to the crease, where after some motivational words from the boundary he found the middle of bat and batted nicely with Jimmy before Jimmy was out to a great catch for 39, shortly followed by AdL who wondered if the sexagenarian umpire?s eyes were as sharp as they might have been and departed LBW for 27.

There were then minimal contributions from the rest, despite Wayne deciding to go into bat without pads, in a newscastle (away) top and he was promptly hit on the leg first ball much to everyone?s enjoyment.

221/9 at tea. Felt a pretty good score and with five of the top 6 passing 20 a good start to the season.

TEA was a BYO affair, bought on by the late confirmation of the game.

George Atkinson opened up after tea and was probably unlucky to have to bowl to their best batsman on a slow pitch where the ball didn?t turn much. Wayne at the other end, looking a bit more like a cricketer in that he had a white shirt on, found his radar after an expensive first over and ended up with an excellent opening spell of 7-0-39-3, which is probably half as many wickets as bottles of lager he?d consumed, but every sportsman has their own way of preparing and it seems to work for him.

A nice catch in the deep from Jimmy, an LBW and a bowled make for a nice set of wickets.

Meanwhile at the other end, Will replaced his dad and quickly picked up their number 3, LBW for 0.

All the while their opener progressed very nicely and never looked like getting out. It would take something special and sure enough it came in the form of a bullet throw from long on from Jimmy to the far end where Chris Moor took a smart catch and broke the wickets to run him out.

Mark Davis replaced Will and soon had their number 5 holing out to cow where he was well caught by Olly.

Six down for 74, 20 overs to go, it seemed like it was only a matter of time. But Petersfield bat deep, putting on 75 for the 6th wicket, and although Will rung the changes with the bowling, apart from Jimmy (1-5 off three), with Nick Crombie not quite finding his radar, 0-49 from four and Olly going wicketless for 6 an over, it was up to the captain to bring himself back on and pick up two wickets in his first over to have them all out for 162.

So, a winning start to the season, good support up at the ground, some confident catching (two fine catches from A Wheeler and we won?t go on about Tim L?s drop), and two non-Atkinson?s getting to 20 made it a memorable day.

Fines were held back at the Izaak where it was decided Mr Moor was the teddy bear for getting to the square in only half his wicket-keeping kit and having to go back for the other pad, although he was run pretty close by Wayne?s entertaining innings.